New York researchers can pay for human eggs

IN A break from the US ethical consensus, the state of New York has decided that women can be paid to donate their eggs for research. The move should boost research into therapeutic cloning, which aims to create stem cells matched to individual patients.

Women who donate eggs must have hormone injections to persuade their ovaries to release a batch of eggs in one go. This is uncomfortable, can lead to complications, and the long-term risks remain uncertain.

Clinics in the US pay several thousand dollars to women who donate eggs for IVF. But most ethics bodies that have considered donations for research are against paying for eggs, given the health risks associated with donating – in 2005 the US National Academies issued guidelines discouraging the practice. As a result, stem cell biologists have struggled to find enough eggs for cloning experiments.